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| - A photo is being shared online that appears to show former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, on a beach with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking. But this is not a real photo, and was almost certainly generated with artificial intelligence (AI).
The photo shows Mr Carney sitting alongside Maxwell and another person resembling US actor Tom Hanks. It has been shared on X and Facebook with the caption: “How many times were you on Epstein's island Mr Carney. Carney hates it when these pictures of him and Maxwell are posted.”
While the photo may appear realistic at first, the ‘Grok’ watermark in the bottom right hand corner suggests it was AI-generated. Grok is a generative AI chatbot integrated into X and developed by Elon Musk’s start up, xAI. It allows users to generate realistic images from text prompts. We’ve recently checked other images generated by Grok that have been shared as if they are genuine.
Some of the hands in the image look misshapen, particularly Maxwell’s visible hand and the third person’s left hand. Issues replicating hands and fingers are a tell-tale sign an image has been created with AI.
The posts refer to private islands in the Virgin Islands owned by Jeffery Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 for helping Epstein sexually abuse young girls.
Fact checkers at Agence France Presse (AFP) have recently written about other images appearing to show Mr Carney and Maxwell together, that are almost certainly AI-generated. Mr Carney is currently running to replace Justin Trudeau as Canada’s next Prime Minister and leader of the country’s Liberal Party.
However, genuine photos do exist that appear to show Mr Carney and Maxwell at a festival in Oxfordshire in 2013. According to the Toronto Sun, Mr Carney’s campaign said Maxwell had been a friend of his sister-in-law, and their meeting had been before Maxwell’s charges.
We’ve previously written about similar edited or AI-generated images showing other public figures with Epstein, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump. We’ve also written about a photo supposedly showing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer with sex abuser Jimmy Savile, which had been digitally altered.
Our guides offer some useful tips on identifying AI and other misleading images.
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